Day four on the Tiny Texas Gypsy House…

Cutting the end of the beam with a Sawsall to get the notch to overlap level on top.

A great day in Manifestation Bay as 4 of the members helped us make great progress with getting the walls all blocked, corner trusses installed, the back wall built, and the overhang for the front is assembled and ready for walls on it too. Whew. Considering we really did not get started until after noon, that was a great day. We did alot of teaching and talking about what we were doing and why. Two of the guys had never shot a framing nail gun before this, or had any carpentry experience in their 40 plus years of life so this is a fun way to learn the basics.

Here is the progress shots including where we started from this morning.

I dug these front corbels out of a dark hidden spot in the warehouses as I was looking for something to give it a fancy touch on the front.

We started off without any real blocking in the walls, the back wall untouched, the front wall unfinished, and made great progress for a day of instruction as well.

Michelle put in the corner scissor truss elements that make the houses much stronger than a typical house.

Here yyou can see Dean and Rick putting in the blocking in the walls. They are learning in order to be able to apply this to a Non-profit designed to get housing to women with children going through rehab and getting back into society with a chance at successful sobriety. This not only will help empower the people they want to help, it will create community and other key components of stability and success for those they help with salvage.

Luckily I had help so as not to tip over the ladder while using the sawsall to clip the beam in half for the other to lock into and get bolted down.

Michelle kept up with the boys who were doing the blocking and gunned a few boards into their new lifelong position.

I added the 4×6 heavy beam on the front outside of the 4×4 beam that will carry the floor. If it were not old growth lumber I could not span these distances without structural issues later.

You can see the far corbel and the beam above that will be the front wall of the loft with the great stained glass in it.

Kevin was a great help as he also had some prior experience and thus we were able to move along pretty fast together because he was able to anticipate some of the things we would need to do, had some tools, and was already gifted with a mechanical aptitude that makes this sort of work much easier. At 54 and smoking, he did a good job and would make a great addition to the teaching team down the road. His wife Melinda is not showing in these pictures but we will get her next time.

Here I am adding a 4×6 at the front of the beams since we added on due to the corbel length, and this adding more strength to the front wall and thus less potential for sag. Given the bed, possibly a California King size, with people at play could get heavy at times.

Turned out the cantilever beam is not level. A few adjustments later we are back at it.

Hope you enjoyed seeing what was going on and how much we got done in a half day of having fun together. Stay tuned for next week and do join as a member and help support our efforts to get this all out to you to so that many can learn from the few who are lucky enough to be here in person to build a house in a month of part time work.

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